by Ryan Casey
“He was such a good kid. Such an innocent kid. But he was smart. A fast learner. He would’ve been an asset to this world. The kind of person this world needs. Kind.”
I felt the taste of sick building in my throat. I didn’t want to talk about my son. I didn’t want to go there.
But I knew I had to.
“He was,” I said.
When I said those words, I felt something else. It was like I was acknowledging for the first time that my son really was gone. He wasn’t an “is” anymore. He was a “was”.
It was a bitter pill to swallow. The hardest thing for a parent to do, bar none.
But for the first time, it felt like in my acceptance of what had happened to my son, I was seeing a different way.
I was seeing a light.
“No matter what they do to us,” Peter said. “No matter what they try to take from us. We’ll always have the knowledge that deep down, we are good. And as long as we stay good, as long as more people stay good, the better chance the world has at lifting itself from the ashes and rebuilding. Don’t ever forget what your son was. Because he was good. So good.”
Something else unexpected happened then, as Peter turned over.
As I lay there, looking into the moon, the water still moving on the road below, I felt something stinging my eyes.
I felt myself crying.
I covered my mouth. I covered my whole face. And as I lay there on the roof, for the first time since Bobby had been taken away, I let everything out in pure, unfiltered form.
I wasn’t sure how long I cried for. It felt like forever.
But when I finished, I took a snort, wiped my eyes.
Because I needed to get some sleep.
I needed to get some sleep because tomorrow was going to be a new day.
An important day.
I closed my eyes and I imagined that window that I knew someone had climbed in through and taken Bobby’s life.
I saw it, and instead of seeing Bobby’s terrified face, I saw Sarah. I saw Kaileigh. I saw Will. I saw Ellie.
I saw them all and I knew what I needed to do.
I got my sleep.
I woke up with strength in my heart, with courage in my mind.
And then I did what I needed to do.
We all did what we needed to do.
We launched our attack.
We ended this.
Once and for all.
Chapter Thirty-One
Jon stared into the empty cabin where he’d been keeping Eddie and he wondered whether it was almost time to introduce a new guest.
It was late at night. The rain had stopped, just about, but a damp smell remained strong in the air. Jon didn’t sleep all that well these days. Never was a good sleeper at the best of times, but since the beginning of the end… well, he’d just got even worse, progressively.
He could get by on a little sleep though. That was an advantage he had over the vast majority of people, he realised. Most people needed six hours at the very minimum just to function with any degree of clarity.
But Jon was clear. He was very clear.
He didn’t need any extra clarity.
He just needed something to fill the hole in his life now that Eddie was gone.
He’d found him earlier today. He’d gone to visit him, to give him some food and water, and he was already dead. There was a nasty smell in the cabin; even nastier than the one that usually filled the place. And honestly, right away, Jon knew from just looking at him that he was gone, and that everything was over.
The man he’d been keeping. The man he’d had here to take out his revenge on.
And he was gone.
He couldn’t explain the mixed emotions he felt about Eddie’s death. After all, he should be happy. This was the man who murdered his family. He’d suffered, and he’d died suffering. That should provide Jon some level of comfort, he knew that.
But it hadn’t. Jon felt, in a sick, twisted sort of way, like he’d been cheated. Like it should’ve been he who had decided exactly how Eddie went, like he’d been denied the opportunity he’d been waiting for all along.
Did that make him sick?
Did that make him twisted?
No. It just made him annoyed. Very bloody annoyed.
And like he needed to carry out that revenge upon someone else.
He looked into the cabin. It would take a long time to clean it. He’d never get rid of some of the stains, some of the flies. But he could try.
Or maybe he didn’t have to.
Maybe it would just make this place all the more horrible for whoever was in here next.
And that would make it all worth it.
That would rekindle his desire for revenge.
It would provide him with another opportunity to quench his thirst, which at present seemed unquenchable…
He walked away from the cabin and towards the caravan where he was keeping them. He looked around the campsite. Looked at the caravans, the little gnomes in the gardens. He looked at the grass, mostly wild and overgrown. He liked how it looked here. Took him back to his childhood, when he used to go camping with his grandparents. Took him back to the walks he’d take through the woods, the adventures he’d go on in the hedges, rooting out dens, discovering all kinds of things, making up all kinds of conspiracies. They had been the good days. The days where nothing mattered, not really. The days where worries slipped into the background; where the biggest concerns were minute compared to those today.
Jon wished he could roll back to those days, the days without concern, the days without worry.
But it was no use sentimentally complaining. Not anymore.
Better to just press forward.
Better to just keep on going.
Better to adapt to the new world.
Because if he couldn’t adapt to the new world, then he’d end up in a cabin like this, trapped and suffering.
He opened the caravan door.
When he stepped inside, right away he was struck by the smell of this place. And it reminded him of how the cabin first smelled when he’d put Eddie inside it. And in a way, that gave him comfort too. Because it reminded him that he might’ve missed one opportunity to truly get his revenge, but there were going to be more. Plenty more.
And it didn’t matter who he took it out on. Not really.
Just as long as he did.
And he would.
This time, he would.
And finally, finally, the pain he felt about what had happened to his family would be absolved once and for all.
He walked over to the woman called Sarah. He crouched right opposite her. She had a gag around her mouth. Her hands were tied behind her back, her feet tied together. Same with the others—Will, Kaileigh, Ellie.
He studied Sarah for a few seconds. Looked at the sheer hatred in her eyes. And that hatred made him realise that she had her reasons for detesting him. She had her reasons for wanting the same for him as he had wanted for Eddie.
And he felt like that united them, in a way. Like it brought them together.
But it didn’t.
It couldn’t.
Once again, Jon couldn’t let sentimentality cloud his judgement.
“I am sorry about the circumstances,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find you somewhere more comfortable. And I mean that. Really.”
Nobody responded. Naturally. They couldn’t respond. He’d taken their voices away.
“I just…” He leaned back. Looked along the line of people. “I guess what I’m trying to do is… I want you to know that this… it isn’t personal. None of it is personal, really. I just wish you hadn’t come after me. I wish you’d just… just gone along with what I was trying to do. I wish you’d just let my people inside your home for the night.”
Silence. More silence. Jon wanted to hear what they had to say. He really did.
But he couldn’t allow that.
It would only complicate things.
“You
know… I wish we could’ve met under different circumstances. And what happened. What happened to your boy. I wish… I wish I could take that back. I really could. But this is a messy world now. And bad shit happens. If your fella hadn’t come searching for us, maybe things wouldn’t have had to be this way. Maybe things could be different.”
A mumbling beneath Sarah’s gag. Will and Kaileigh were crying. Ellie was silent.
Jon looked around. Then he reached over for Sarah’s gag. What harm would it be to hear what she had to say? Perhaps if he listened to what she had to say, he could see things from her perspective. She could convince him to not go ahead with what he knew he would have to do if Alex returned here—which he suspected he would. After all, he knew what a vengeful man looked like. He was one, after all.
When he moved Sarah’s gag away, he heard her pant.
“Here,” he said, holding out some water for her. “Drink up. You could do with some—”
“He’s going to come back here.”
Jon’s eyes narrowed. He felt a fear creep up his body. Instant regret for removing the gag. “What?”
Sarah’s eyes were wide and bloodshot. She looked at Jon with total, unfiltered hate. “Alex is going to come back here. He’s going to come for us. But mostly, he’s going to come for you. And he’s going to make you suffer. If it’s the last thing he does, he’s going to make you suffer for what you did to our son.”
Then, she spat into Jon’s face.
Jon was still for a second. He let the phlegm roll down his face, before wiping it away. He looked up at Sarah and smiled. “I’ll accept I probably deserved that.”
Then he pulled back his fist and cracked it across her face.
He felt a bit of that vengeance pouring from his system, then. Just a little of the vengeance he felt towards Eddie for what he’d done to his family; the vengeance he’d never truly been able to satisfy.
Then he pulled the gag back over Sarah’s mouth, stepped back as Will and Kaileigh cried louder, as Ellie’s gaze grew more intense.
“If he does come back here,” he said, “he’s going to regret it. They all are. I promise you that.”
He started to walk away.
But then he saw something.
He saw Will.
Sarah must’ve seen him looking at him because she started kicking out, struggling, crying beneath her gag.
And that just made Jon even more determined. Even more certain about what he had to do.
He walked over to Will. Crouched opposite him.
“Say, kid. How about we find you a new place to sleep? It’s awfully cramped in here.”
And as he looked into Will’s tearful eyes, Jon smiled.
Chapter Thirty-Two
We made our way to Jon’s camp, and this time, I knew we were ready.
It was early morning. There was a strong breeze, which I was grateful for, mostly because it masked the sounds of our footsteps as we crunched through the fallen branches in the woods. It was good to be back in the woods, in a way. A relief to be out of the open, back into hiding. Because the open wasn’t a safe place to be anymore. If the threat wasn’t from people, it certainly was still strong from the elements. We’d discovered that first-hand.
We’d climbed our way off the top of the building that we’d spent the night on and paddled our way across the mass stream of water that had burst out of the dam. As we moved, I looked everywhere for the man who I owed my life to—who we all owed our lives to. He had saved us. He’d had a choice of just leaving us, letting us get caught up in the water. And if he had, who knows where he’d be now, and who knows where we’d be.
But he’d found it in the goodness of his soul to help us. He’d saved our lives.
And he’d died trying.
There couldn’t be an act more selfless than that.
The trees stretched above us, the leaves sprouting from them as spring continued to progress. The sound of the branches brushing against one another in the breeze was like they were whispering at one another, passing on a message to each and every one of their kind that someone was coming through. I felt like the trees knew what I’d done, and knew what I was thinking. I felt guilty that they should be witness to whatever I was about to do, another of humanity’s great moments of destruction.
But I couldn’t feel guilty about the plan ahead. About the task at hand.
I could only know deep down that it was the right thing to do.
We were getting my wife back. We were getting Ellie back. We were getting Kaileigh and Will back.
I wasn’t going to settle until I had them.
And I wasn’t going to settle until Jon was dead.
“So what’s the actual plan?”
I heard Peter’s voice and my stomach sank. I was waiting for someone to ask that question. After all, Suzy and Peter weren’t just going to blindly go along with whatever I was planning. And with good reason, too—it was good to question everything, to make sure I wasn’t dragging them into a situation that they weren’t going to escape from.
I looked around at Peter as he studied me through narrowed eyes. Then I looked at Suzy.
“Woah,” she said. “That look. That’s a ‘you aren’t gonna like what I’m suggesting’ look.”
“It isn’t going to be easy,” I said, interrupting the concern in Suzy’s voice and powering on with arguing my point.
“Too right it isn’t,” Suzy said. “You heard what those people said last time we dropped by their place. If we return, they’ll kill every one of our people. Your wife. My son.”
A sour taste filled my mouth as the image of losing Sarah—as well as everyone else—reared its ugly head in my mind once again. “That’s not going to happen.”
“And how can you be so sure of that?”
“Because we aren’t going to play it safe this time.”
I looked at the pistol in my hand. We were locked and loaded, as they say. All of us armed. All of us with enough ammo to take down these people. But we couldn’t be gung-ho about it. For all we knew, there was someone standing beside our people getting ready to take them out, each and every one of them, at the first sight of trouble.
But then again… did I really believe that?
“These people,” I said. “Jon’s people. They took our people for a reason.”
“Yeah,” Peter said. “They took ’em because we were shits to them—”
“They took Ellie and Kaileigh too. Now Ellie and Kaileigh aren’t our people. And Jon would’ve known that. Which makes me wonder why he’s done it. And it makes me wonder… it makes me wonder whether he’d kill them at all.”
Silence followed. Suzy narrowed her eyebrows. “What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying it might be crazy to imagine, especially what happened to… to Bobby. But what if his death really was an accident? What if they didn’t intend to kill anyone at all? And if they don’t intend to kill anyone… maybe we can use that to our advantage.”
More silence.
It was Suzy who broke it again.
“Why am I getting the impression you’re about to suggest something really, really stupid?”
“All I’m saying is maybe we can use compassion to our advantage.”
“Compassion?” she said. “These people—”
“All we know about these people is that they are mad at us because of what I did. Because I turned them away. And because I… I killed one of their people.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. It was the first time I’d truly faced up and accepted that my killing of Brian might just be the root cause of all our problems after all.
“So maybe they are evil. Maybe they do just want to cause chaos. But I say we try something different. Something that you aren’t going to like.”
I was looking right at Suzy when I said this.
“What?” she said.
I took a deep breath, swallowed a lump in my throat. “I feel guilty even suggesting it.”
“What’
re you suggesting?”
“And if you don’t want to do it, you don’t—”
“Alex, what’re you suggesting?”
I took another deep breath, cleared my throat. I steadied myself, prepared for what I was about to say. “The only way we’re going to get inside that place is if one of us hands ourselves over. If one of us pretends the rest of the group has fallen. Or pretends they’ve been separated from the rest of the group, or that they’ve walked away.”
Silence. Tension building. Confusion growing.
“And what better person to go running back to Jon’s camp than the mother of her son?”
I saw the realisation building in Suzy’s eyes. I saw her comprehending what I was saying.
“You’re asking me to be bait?” she said.
“You get them to open the gates. You start to make your way in. And when the moment arrives… we open fire.”
“So I repeat,” Suzy said. “You’re asking me to be bait?”
I didn’t want to think of it that way. I didn’t want to reduce Suzy’s role in all this to something as crass as “bait.”
But in the end, she had a point.
“I suppose so,” I said. “The question is… are you in?”
Suzy shook her head. She looked at Peter, then she sighed. “Remind me, Alex. Don’t ever let me come anywhere with you again in future.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Suzy made her way towards Jon’s camp and she wondered what in the name of hell she’d signed up for.
The afternoon sun peeked through the trees, beating down on the top of her scalp, which was itchy and dry. She figured there’d been some nasty shit in the water that she’d been wading through earlier that day, so much so that it was making her skin flare up, too. She’d always had trouble with allergic reactions, things like that. She remembered a time when she was a kid that she went into school for the first day of Year Eight, ready for a new start. She wasn’t a particularly popular kid, mostly because she was so sensitive. But she remembered her dogged determination to be a different person when that day came around—how she was going to be less sensitive, stand up for herself more, and also join in on some of the jokes, sometimes at the other kids’ expense.
